El Principe (2019)

Directed by: Sebastian Muñoz | 96 minutes | drama | Actors: Juan Carlos Maldonado, Alfredo Castro, Gastón Pauls, Cesare Serra, Lucas Balmaceda, Sebastián Ayala, José Antonio Raffo, Paola Volpato, Catalina Martin, Nicolás Zárate, Jaime Leiva, Andrés Pozo, Andrés Sánchez, Carlos Corales, Claudio Rodríguez, Juan Ruiz, Oscar Hernandez, Paula Zuniga, Franco Toledo

Set in the 1970s, ‘El Príncipe’ is a coming-of-age film in transvestism, the story of a beautiful young man (Maldonado) who ends up in a rough prison because of a long-unexplained crime. In jail, this Jaime has a sexual relationship with ‘The Stallion’, an old-age blanket (Castro) who resembles the older Leonard Cohen. And flashbacks show us, among other things, Jaime’s equally unsubtle steps on the love path with the older Elena (Volpato). In the first hour we have seen Jaime come moaning so many times that even inflation of what is shown threatens to take place.

Who is this boy, and why should he interest us? Why, for example, did Jaime end up among these cynical convicts? That interests us, but the attention soon shifts to the promising relationship with the paternal ‘Stallion’, who teaches Jaime, among other things, to play the guitar. Flashbacks keep coming back regularly, and the stage is staged, in which the actors seem to pose as determinants. The tenderness between ‘The Stallion’ and Jaime seems just a glimmer of hope in ‘El Príncipe’; loveless sex is everywhere. Like in Pier Paolo Pasolini’s ‘Salò’ – but much more of a political film than this naturalistic prison drama.

Even urinating in public has an erotic connotation with Muñoz. The animal rut, especially that in the privacy-free prison, is so thick on top that it can arouse disgust; Muñoz doesn’t like pretty cinema, but he does like battered character heads – masturbating, fucking, or watching. The role of the prison guards is not much more attractive. And the bleue Maldonado, too much of a rabbit looking into the headlights, is a very emblematic opposite. The film continues to fascinate – partly due to the excellent Castro, but a deeper layer is withheld from us. As a search for love, what is shown is too scanty.